Personal memories are nothing but fictional constructs, where real events are constantly blended with fantasies and recorded in the less painful manner. The smart network of neurological connections in charge of such a complex design becomes the guardian our sanity, capable of sweetening life traumas while teaching crucial survival lessons.

The Rope makes use of photographs from the family album and 'archival mental imagery' to represent a collection of lived experiences. Tight to one another, each moment complements the next, filling the gaps between ‘the real’ and that which has been, for many years, only imagined. The project conforms an exercise of data extraction, where the resulting pieces of an ever-changing puzzle suggest that, as individuals, we are not only shaped by our personal circumstances, but by the multiplicity of idealised stories that attempt to make certain sense of our temporary, earthbound presence.

Paula Gortázar is a photography researcher, artist and lecturer. She was awarded a Ph.D from the University of Westminster, specialising in Eastern and Central European photography from the communist period. Her work has been widely exhibited in the UK, Germany, Spain, Canada and the USA, including venues like The Photographers’ Gallery, and published in different international media, such as The British Journal of Photography. She has also contributed with her writing to Source magazine, and different academic journals like Photography and Culture. Paula currently lectures in photography at the University of Westminster in London.